NATIONAL NEWS NEW VISION, Friday, January 5, 2018 5 KCCA closes 20 butcher shops over chemicals

By Charles Etukuri

Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) and the National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) on Wednesday recovered dangerous chemicals used by butchers to preserve meat and keep away flies that pose a health risk to the consumers. The joint inspection team closed nine butcheries around Kalerwe and arrested Butchers arrested for allegedly using chemicals. KCCA and UNBS closed over 20 two men who were found butcher shops in a joint operation around the city. Courtesy photos with the chemicals. Peter Kaujju, the KCCA director of antioxidant and preservatives potentially cause death.” communications, told New SIMPLY READ to keep their meat fresh. She also warns that the most Vision that they had decided Medical experts have linked Dr Kitaka said when used to common result of the chronic to conduct a joint operation many ailments to use of preserve corpses, formalin has poisoning due to eating foods with UNBS on butcher shops formaldehyde and Sodium proved to be helpful in keeping that are often preserved with across the city, checking the metabisulphite . To learn the body from decaying, formalin is usually damaged hygienic state of the meat more about these chem- especially, when they are kidneys or can cause cancer in and the butchers, structural icals, visit https://www. meant to be stored for a long the future. standards of these butcher preserving meat, found in butcher shops around the city chemicalsafetyfacts.org/ time or are required to be used Online sources say sodium shops and investigating meat formaldehyde/ as lab material. metabisulphite is used to preservation mechanisms. who were in possession of of illegal chemicals in the “For example, if we combine preserve food and is used “The operation is a fact- the drugs, arrested. Over 20 preservation of meat and fish. sampled in Bweyogerere this formalin with a material extensively in commercial finding mission and to check butcher shop were closed in In 1986, the US Food and trading centre by Saturday such as fish or meat, the wine making. “It is a bleaching the compliance of butcheries the entire inspection. Drug Authority (FDA) banned Vision, seven of them were formalin will be absorbed by agent in the textile, pulp and with the required public health The operation comes in the the use of inorganic salts. found to be using both the meat or fish with ease and paper industries. standards,” Kaujju said. He wake of a detailed Saturday However, they still exist in the dreaded formalin and then the formalin will remove It is also used in the chemical, added that the joint operations Vision investigation which our chemist shops and can be inorganic salt to keep the meat cells from the fish or meat pharmaceutical, film and would go on to ensure proper revealed that many of the easily accessed by traders. fresh and keep away flies. and replace it with more rigid photographic industries and hygiene. butcher shops, especially those The Saturday Vision The investigations further formaldehyde. The resultant even in water and sewage One of the men arrested with dealing in meat, chicken and investigations mainly relied revealed that sodium effect will be that preserved treatment plants. However, the drugs confessed that they fish plus grasshopper vendors on eyewitness accounts, secret metabisulphite which is whitish meat or fish will survive for a pure sodium metabisulfite can were using chemicals to keep were using unregulated recordings and lab tests carried in colour can be easily obtained long time. Besides that the fish be quite hazardous. the meat fresh and flies away. preservatives to make greying out on fish and meat samples from chemists downtown. It is or meat will not rot because Sodium metabisulphite The other suspect denied meat and the old products they which revealed the presence mixed with water and sprayed formaldehyde is capable of may cause respiratory using the chemicals on the are selling look fresh. of traces of formalin and on the meat to maintain its killing microbes or germs problems. Inhalation of meat, insisting that the drugs The four-week investigation inorganic salts which pose a reddish colour and create an which usually play a role in the sodium metabisulfite irritates found at his butcher had been also found out that the practice dangerous health hazard to the impression that the meat is still process of decay,” Kitaka said. your respiratory tract. bought for home use. has been exacerbated by the consumers. fresh yet it is not. Investigations She, however, warns that Symptoms include coughing It was not yet clear which lack of proper monitoring Dr Sabrina Kitaka for told also revealed that the practice meat preserved using formalin and shortness of breath. In chemicals were confiscated mechanism by the bodies New Vision that formalin, has replicated in other districts can be dangerous if consumed. some individuals, sodium from the butcher shops since tasked with supervision such which is actually a name of a such as Jinja and Mbarara, According to Kitaka, if you metabisulfite may cause an they were not labelled, but as KCCA, health, agriculture chemical substance consisting putting thousands of lives at frequently eat foods that are allergic, asthma-type reaction,” Kauju said they would conduct ministries and UNBS. of a mixture of formaldehyde, risk. preserved with large dose or the website indicates. lab tests to determine their The investigations found out methanol and water, was A number of highprofile excessive formalin, “it will type. that hundreds of lives could widely used as a preservative supermarkets that sell fresh over time cause irritation The Saturday Vision The joint operation which was have been exposed to the risk for dead bodies, but is lately beef and meat products were to the stomach so that the investigations were extended to Ntinda, another of catching dangerous ailments often misused as a food also using inorganic salts and blood causes vomiting or funded by the African city suburb, saw two butchers; such as cancer due to the preservative. sodium metabisulphite which diarrhoea mixed with blood, Centre for Media Joseph Kayondo and Ssekabira excessive use of large amounts Out of the nine butcheries are used as a disinfectant, urine or blood and could also Excellence Liver patient seeks funds to undergo operation in India

By Stella Naigino her to go to Hospital cholestasis. in India which would require $14,900 “It usually shows with yellowing because they suspected her condition Her gall bladder had collapsed and (about sh54m). Her friends and of the eyes, pale skin, dark or yellow It all started with fever and headache, to be related to the liver.” there was an echogenic foci with relatives carried out a car wash to urine and stool plus itching of the but Halima Khan did not realise she At , Halima was posterior shadowing which measured raise funds and they managed to get skin,” he said. He adds that treatment was severely ill. sent for a scan and the findings were 1.6cm. only sh15m. is usually administered depending on “For quick relief, she went to a of cholelithiasis with dilated bile There were multiple bile ducts seen the cause, but patients such as Halima nearby clinic in Lugazi town to buy ducts. in the liver, but the common bile duct Liver cholestasis need to undergo surgery immediately. some painkillers, but the clinician She was given treatment, but her was not well visualised. According to medical experts, For help and contribution through advised her to go to hospital and get condition worsened every other day. Today she is surviving on painkillers cholestasis is a condition that affects mobile money service, Halima can be proper diagnosis,” Nasaren Khan, a Two weeks later, she was taken to and getting treatment for the signs the liver and interferes with the flow of reached on 0782488466. daughter of Halima, narrated. MRI Centre and the findings and symptoms. bile from the liver to the duodenum. Alternatively, money can be “Mother then went to Marina from there showed that Halima had Dr Vincent Karuhanga of Friend’s Dr Karuhanga says the condition deposited on her daughter’s account Medical Centre in Lugazi and it is features of a tumour in the portal Polyclinic in Kampala says Halima’s happens when one’s liver, bile duct or number 1035199561338 (Equity from there, that the doctors advised hepatis area of the liver leading to only hope is undergoing an operation even the pancreas fail to function well. Bank) in the names of Nasaren Khan.